Thanksgiving through New Year's...hold on

Wow, what a busy and super fun few months!! Maizie Belle turned four months in Nov. so she started eating cereal and has loved it (even more than Tate which I didn't think was possible!).

I'm not sure how it happened but we hosted Thanksgiving this year, thats right, at OUR house!! It went better than I could've expected and even though my husband was laughing at my lists and schedules for all the prepping and cooking, it turned out just how every Thanksgiving at home turned out, PERFECT! (at least I thought so...) and Marcus and I really enjoyed spending all that time together making the food, that's right, my hubby helped every step of the way and even had claim to a couple of the pies!!

We decorated for Christmas that weekend and the boys asked about the stockings. I told them they were like socks, so naturally this is how I found Tate. Please excuse his nakedness, he loves to undress! Just be grateful he has a diaper on!!

The boys did great decorating the tree and are loving our tradition of having their own box of ornaments to put on the tree. They get a new one each christmas and we had fun talking about their ornaments from past christmas's and what they were doing then.

I'm always surprised to find this little gem, and I love it! (Our first Christmas!!)

...with a picture of us that Christmas morning, how cute!

We celebrated Marc's birthday at the beginning of Dec. with his favorite cake that I make him on his birthday (ever since the first one we celebrated together, yah its that good!).

Marcus loves celebrating birthdays and this one didn't disappoint, a gift I surprised him with brought him to tears, which brought me to tears and then the kids were confused...a great day for my sweetie!

Here are my babies in some of their cute Christmas outfits all ready for church, little angels (at least at this moment...)

We were lucky enough to get to spend several days down south (no I'm not talking about Provo, way down south!) the week before Christmas with Marcus' parents after Marcus had finished his finals. I've decided I like vacationing around the holidays because it forces me to plan ahead, so I had all my shopping done, presents wrapped etc. by Dec. 15th and then when we got home we just got to enjoy the season with family and friends and very little stress. Now only if that is how it goes every year!! Maybe this year we were just lucky... Here's Maizie at the restaurant being silly...

M&M world in Vegas, a must see since my husbands initials are MNM afterall, and mine and Maizies are MM, silly ehhh? If you remember Jacob's aversion to mascots as I have posted many times before you realize why he is hiding behind Marcus leg, and later when the Coca-Cola bear tried to eat Marcus head (as seen on FB) why Jacob was in tears from a distance...

I will also say this was probably the best vacation with the kids so far as it comes to sleeping, being in the same room, etc. The kids were awesome and enjoyed almost every minute of it!! We all got enough sleep which is pretty amazing considering we have a 5 month old!! (if you recall she is an angel baby!)

The kids were so excited to pick out their favorite color of M&M shirt!

Ahhh, Christmas morning ... it is so fun when your kids get excited about this! Jacob soaked up everything about the holidays this year, especially the baby Jesus and celebrating his birthday. We sang to him and everything! He was definitely surprised to see all the presents when he came upstairs.

...and then there is Tate, what can ya say about him? He's a cutie and well, lets just say full of personality! He loved opening the gifts!!

Maizie Belle's musical Belle statue, she was enthralled!

Okay, I was somewhat excited about Maizie getting a Cabbage Patch Doll, I used to love mine!! And it smelled just like I remember mine smelling like (Marcus claimed it smelled like rubber, way to ruin my memory babe!)

I think the resemblance is uncanny!

She just keeps getting cuter!!

My two brothers who live out of state came into town with their families for the week after Christmas so that week was busier than the week before and we played every day!! Shopping, movies, EATING, more parties and gifts...it was sooooo fun! We found these cute skirts for the girls while we were shopping and got them all girled up!!

Maizie and Abby, one year apart, to the day!!

We made yummy apples, apple struesel was my favorite!

And what do you do on New Years Day? You put stickers all over yourself and your dad, since mom and dad are too tired to care about it (thanks for the late night laughs everybody!)

Marcus' aunt called Maizie a little "Butterball", that describes her perfectly! She's so squishy!

...and check out those thunder thighs!

She looked so cute yesterday in blue to match her beautiful blue eyes!!

And she's still doing awesome! For example, she went to bed at 7:30 pm last night and I hadn't heard from her yet so a little while ago I went to check on her (at 8:30 am) and she was just lying awake in her bed snuggling with her soft blanket. She rarely cries even after 13 hours of sleeping and no eating!! What a special little girl!